© 1993 William Wentworth
© 1993 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
William Wentworth, Towamba, NSW
In writing to support the editor’s comments in the July/August edition, I wish to make a couple of points which I don’t think have been adequately covered so far.
In the first place, most of us accept the notion that truth can be assessed only by its content. Lacking, as we do, any known authority to discriminate between truth and falsehood for us, we can only determine the matter by our own lights, according to what makes sense to us, by what appeals to our highest ideals and activates our purest motives. Those of us who believe The URANTIA Book to be in fact the revelation it claims to be, and not some clever fraud, have adopted this attitude because the contents of the book have convinced us that it is what it says it is. As far as I know, this is the only way we can validate any revelation, by the inner conviction that what is revealed is truth, and not falsehood. For those of us to whom it makes sense, The URANTIA Book is its own validation. No outside authority exists to validate it for us.
In the same way, truth, from whatever source, can be assessed and validated only by whether or not it appeals to our highest lights. If it does so appeal then we can accept it; if it does not, we reject it. The whole question of where it comes from is of no consequence, just as it is of no consequence in our acceptance of the teachings of The URANTIA Book.
If ‘channellers’, or others involved in abnormal methods of communication have some truth to impart, let them impart it. We’ll make up our minds about its validity in the usual way, without reference to the mode of its origin. Whether information is ‘channelled’ or discovered in some other way makes absolutely no difference as to whether we accept it or not, for that decision is made, not by any consideration of the manner of its reception, but by the conviction content of the information itself. If what these ‘channelers’ are doing is trying to establish superhuman authority for points of view which are really just embellishments of their own ideas, then we’ll quickly perceive this because the quality of the information will not be commensurate with the authority claimed for it. Unfortunately the world has its share of either outright frauds or else the sincerely self-deceived. We do, after all, want to avoid their traps.
The second point I wish to make is that, considered in its entirety, The URANTIA Book really constitutes a warning against indulgence in the paranormal, the strange or the unusual. The thrust of the book is a complete de-emphasis of the strange and unusual, and an affirmation that most of the truth in us, and of us, is derived from ordinary humdrum existence. The book makes the point in dozens of different ways, that God’s will is done primarily in everyday life, in a universe of rational order, largely devoid of peculiar psychic manifestations. Both the growth of the Supreme and the growth of the individual ascender depend on commonplace daily life, glorified by the way in which that daily life is lived. The knowledge of God and the desire to do his will inspires the individual to live the ordinary in such a way as to make it extraordinary. The humdrum is thus elevated to the sublime, and this is what is so astonishing and exhilarating about life.
Preoccupation with the dramatic aspects of the unusual and exceptional can be stimulating and exciting, but it is not the message of The URANTIA Book. I support the editor of Six-O-Six in his comments, and urge students of The URANTIA Book to ignore those glamorous distractions which only serve to undermine its fundamental message to humanity.